


The Outtakes

by Gotalong, xoimadivaox



Series: Patience is Virtuous [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Additional scenes, Breathplay, Choking, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Ham4Ham, I guess facetime sex counts as phone sex, Light Dom/sub, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Outtakes, Phone Sex, Praise Kink, Shower Sex, Tattoos, blowjob, king george the third - Freeform, switch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-11-06 03:33:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11027739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gotalong/pseuds/Gotalong, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoimadivaox/pseuds/xoimadivaox
Summary: In this part, you will find additional scenes to Part 1. Most scenes can probably be read as standalone but will make much more sense if you've read Part 1, since they are definitely to be considered in the same overarching storyline. Every chapter will be a different outtake, in no linear timeline fashion. They are either scenes that we've already written from another POV, which means we can't publish them as chapters in a timeline logically compliant with Part 1, they can be scenes that are so far ahead in the future that we've decided to publish them now, they can be little snippets into the lives of side characters, or they can be meant as some more insight on moments that were quickly brushed off in Part 1. Anything that complements the main story, basically.We hope you enjoy.The list of tags will be updated with every new piece.





	1. The One at Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily based on a new video of Jon at Stage Fright earlier this month. There's no way we were going to wait until we realistically reach 2017 since Part 1 takes place in late 2006, so here it is. Consider this some type of peace offering for the painfully slow and detailed progression of the main storyline. 
> 
> The video in question can be found [here.](http://jgroffdaily.tumblr.com/post/160975118109/jonathan-groff-singing-youll-be-back-at-therapy)  
> You can't possibly blame us for... letting our imagination run wild. See you all on the other side.
> 
> Also, let it be known that we'll be posting these as they come, you know how it is with plot bunnies, you never quite control where they're going to take you, but we plan on reorganizing them chronologically once everything is said and done.
> 
> As usual, y'all know the drill - this is entirely a work of fiction, never happened, never will, and please, keep this very far away from anyone who might know anyone who might know the people involved, so that we can continue having nice things. No harm intended, yadeeyada.

Jon is… On all accounts, bordering on drunk. He’ll defend himself and claim loud and clear that he’s only just tipsy but everyone knows better. There’s a pleasant buzz coursing through his body and there’s a seemingly permanent blush colouring his cheeks. Marti Gould Cummings, a well-known queen of the New York drag scene, is sitting right next to him on stage, a knowing grin spread on her painted lips. Maybe if he’d actually been sober, Jon would have had the sensibility to wonder just what that grin was about, or to be slightly on guard because there is no way that this is good news for him. But he’s not, so he doesn’t do either.

“Well, now. We can’t have _the_ Jonathan Groff here with us without talking about _Hamilton_ , King George and your lovely husband, now can we, guys?”

The crowd cheers and claps loudly and oh, yeah. Jon should have seen that one coming. Well, he knew _Hamilton_ was going to be brought up, but talking about Lin? It’s not exactly like it’s uncommon nowadays, almost everyone wants to talk to him about Lin, but there’s a big part of him that wishes he could keep his husband all to himself for once.

“How about you start by singing _You’ll Be Back_ and we’ll go from there?” Marti asks.

“Are you singing it with me?” Jon asks right back.

“Oh god, no,” Marti replies and Jon playfully rolls his eyes.

“Alright, alright. Bear with me, you guys. I haven’t sung it in a while.”

He won’t say it in front of everyone, but he’s had a really hard time singing anything _Hamilton_ \- or _In The Heights_ \- related since Lin left for London to shoot _Mary Poppins_. Understandably. It’s just not the same without him around. And to say that less than a year ago they were still blasting up Act I whenever they were cleaning around the apartment. (Act II was just too sad for that, as is the standard with musical theatre − _Hamilton_ was no exception, so they kept to the first hour for everyone’s sake.)

And so, Jon starts singing. And fucks up three words in. _Three. Words. In_. He’s definitely drunker than he had thought. He’d blame it on the fact that all three of his songs were to be sung to the exact same instrumental, so really, who can blame him? The crowd supplies him with the following line and, ah, yes! It’s coming back now. So he goes back to the song, adds a lot more flair and flourish to it than he used to at the Rodgers. Although, that might be just because for once he doesn’t have Andy breathing down his neck and threatening him if he doesn’t stand tall and cold and still.

He fucks up again a couple of times in the first verse alone, and wow. He doubts that anyone in the room believes that he’s played King George for over a year and performed that song eight times a week anymore − they’re probably all thinking that he’s just a clone or something, because he can’t believe he’s done it a million times before and can’t even be bothered to remember the words to it. Being tipsy is clearly not helping him, but he manages to let out a quick speech − on how he’s based his performance out of a video of Barbra Streisand basically fucking herself with her own voice, he really needs to send an apology card to her − before the chorus comes around and he can get his head back in the King George space. Although, this time around, he really plays the whole fucking himself with his own voice thing he’s only ever talked about in the common area of the Public.

Jon’s too drunk to be critical of how he doesn’t quite land that high note, he knows he can do better when he's sober, but he doesn’t mind. He’s having a good time and, apparently, so is everyone else and that’s all that really matters. Besides, considering how pricey the tickets for _Hamilton_ are, everyone in the audience right now is getting a hell of a deal on a number from the − still − hottest show in town. Then… Well, then he gets to the part he knows Lin likes the best, is the most proud of. The one he knows Lin gets goosebumps out of if he plays it right.

“ _And no, don’t change the subject. ‘Cause you’re my favorite subject,_ ” he’s not entirely sure of how it happens, but his hand finds its way to Marti’s shoulder and he starts caressing her upper arm and it takes everything out of him not to giggle when she winks at the crowd for being Jon’s favorite subject. “ _My sweet, submissive subject,_ ” again, before he fully realizes what he’s doing, his hand is well on its way to Marti’s neck and that’s when she brings her mic back to her lips.

“I _am_ submissive,” Marti says and Jon’s fairly certain that his brain short-circuits right at that moment.

His fingers close around Marti’s neck, he doesn’t even apply an ounce of pressure and if anyone asks, he’ll say that he did it just because King George wanted to finish his song and she was rudely interrupting him, but he’s not even sure he believes himself at this point. He goes back to singing, brings his hand back to himself and, from the corner of his eyes, he can see that Marti has brought a hand to her chest and looks a little stunned and Jon strongly refuses to acknowledge that reaction. Nope. Nope. He will not engage. Nope.

He holds the note for an excessive amount of time during the last “ever” just because he can and stops shortly after Marti nods at him, slightly impressed. If he’s thinking about Lin giving him permission to stop, that’s his very own problem. He forgets the lyrics a couple more times, but the crowd is generous as ever and simply sings back his words until the rest of the sentence comes back to him and they happily join in when Jon prompts them with his “ _Everybody!_ ,” just like in the show.

After he’s done, Marti asks him a few questions, the usuals “How was it to be part of such a phenomenon?” and “What was it like to watch Lin write it?”. He answers gracefully, practically on auto-pilot at this point. He’s answered them so often in the past couple of years that he doesn’t even have to think about them anymore. Which means he gets a few more minutes to himself to think about Lin instead. Marti surprises him by suggesting they FaceTime Lin and Jon’s eyes go wide for a second before giddiness seeps into his blood.

He’s giggling like a schoolgirl as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and scrolls through his contacts. He keeps the phone turned toward him, his leg jumping in excitement as he waits for the call to pick up. Lin _always_ picks up for him, he’s not going not to. Until a girl in the audience starts shouting that he’s in London at the moment, that it’s late at night, that Lin is probably asleep and Jon’s expression falls. She’s right, of course she is. Marti laughs it off while Jon stares at his phone resentfully for a minute before he slips it back in his pocket. He really wanted to talk to Lin. It would have been nice. Marti announces they’re going to take a break and that, when they come back, Joe DiPietro will join them on stage.

He goes back in the crowd, making a bee-line for the bar to get another drink. He’s waiting on it when he decides to pull out his phone and, without thinking, tries to call Lin again. Thank the technology gods for FaceTime, it’s so easy to keep in touch even as Lin is an entire continent away. But Lin doesn’t wake up, doesn’t pick up, again. His frown deepens as the bartender puts his glass in front of him and Jon tries again. He’s not exactly known for making great decisions when he’s drunk. Well. Apart from marrying Lin the first time around, that is. And yet, they’ve gone through this enough times, Lin’s been gone more than long enough that Jon really has no excuse for pretending it’s a decent time over there, but he misses Lin so much in that moment. He shrugs and keeps calling until Lin finally answers, no doubt having been woken up by the insistent vibration of his phone.

“Jon? Sweetheart, what’s happening? What’s wrong?” There’s enough worry in his voice to make Jon realize that Lin’s first response to missing several calls from his husband probably is to jump to the worst conclusions. He looks down.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just missed you. I’m at Therapy and Marti made me sing _You’ll Be Back_ for Stage Fright and I hadn’t done it since you left and… I just wish you were here... I’m sorry.”

He looks up from his gaze being fixed on the toes of his shoes to find a very sleepy, very disheveled Lin looking at him with obvious effort to keep his eyes remotely opened in the darkness of the room. His heart picks up at how ridiculously adorable Lin is, and really, he shouldn’t be _this_ affected after over a decade of being married, but before he can say anything, he notices Marti creeping behind him in the little thumbnail showing him what Lin sees from their side of the video call.

“Hey, Mr. Write. I think you should know that your handsome husband, right here, has attempted a not-so-subtle chokehold on me earlier. I think there’s a chance you’ve married a sociopathic murderer, maybe you should stay safe over wherever you are,” she says playfully.

Jon blushes and Lin’s eyes go wide at that statement, suddenly much more alert, or at least as much as he can through the sleep fog clouding his synapses.

“Did he, now? He’s been known to do that sometimes. It’s pretty great, actually.” Lin never passes on an opportunity to tease Jon. “He turns right into a puddle if you do that to him, too, I’ve learned. It's the greatest thing.”

“Lin!” Jon retorts, slightly horrified but blushing harder than ever, as Marti exclaims an “Oh, really?” at the same time.

Jon quickly ducks and escapes from Marti before she can get her claws around his neck. The worst part is that Jon can’t even be sure that Lin realized the scope of his admission, considering how useless he really is in the first hour or two after he wakes up.

“Not that I don’t love thinking about my husband choking me, but I have an early start tomorrow and only a few hours of sleep left to catch, so… was there a reason behind this call?” Lin asks with a yawn once Jon reaches a quieter space in the bar, a feat that’s worth mention considering he’s smack dab in the middle of a drag show.

“Not really. I just wanted to say hi, I love you, I miss you, and everyone here says hi, too. I’ll let you sleep, lovebird. I’ll see you soon, okay? Love you.”

“Love you too,” Lin mumbles, and Jon would be ready to bet a hefty sum that he’s already asleep by the time he manages to end the call.

What was meant to be an innocent phone call quickly turns into a chase for the rest of the night in which Marti keeps trying to get her hands around Jon’s neck and he’s not quite sure he wants to drop right then and there, definitely drunk, and with Lin being so far from him and in no state to bring him back to reality, or less dramatically, even to a remotely functioning state of mind. He’s not sure he wants everyone in the bar to find out about his biggest weakness either.

Altogether, however, he has a good time at Therapy. It could have been a lot better (if he hadn’t forgotten every other line of his song), but it also could have been a lot worse (if, per se, Marti had succeeded in getting her hands on him). He takes a few pictures with some fans in the crowd before he ducks back in the proverbial green room, taking a moment to collect himself, reconnect his thoughts, put himself back together. Before long, he’s asked to go back on stage to wrap the night up and he goes, bows and waves to the crowd and everyone shuffles backstage. They talk for a while longer, Jon drinks one more cocktail, eventually ends up leaving and dropping dead in his bed the second he gets his shoes, sweater and jeans off.

When he wakes up next, way too early for the time he got home, the sun is shining high through his window. He hadn’t shut the blinds and he groans at how bright the early morning is. His head is properly _pounding_ , every cell in his body is throbbing with soreness and he doesn’t have words to describe the god awful taste in his mouth. The first thing that pops in his brain is one of the first lines of that new musical, the one that Lacamoire worked on, “ _Today’s gonna be a good day! Here’s why!_ ” and the level of irony is just too much to process.

He checks his phone and the only thing he sees on his lockscreen is a text from Lin he’d received a few hours prior, most likely when Lin woke up on the other side of the pond. There’s a picture attached, that he can see on the right side of the message, but the thumbnail is entirely too small for him to be able to say what it is for sure. He almost hopes he’s wrong at what he _thinks_ it is, what it seems like it could be.

He’s not. He's entirely right.

Lin indeed sent him a picture of himself, and his face is nowhere near what’s included in the frame. Couldn’t be much further if he tried. The caption is short and straight to the point, _This is what you get for waking me up to thoughts of you choking me._ Lin's holding himself up, but Jon can tell his hand is definitely only there for show – he knows how much Jon loves his hands, god, they're so _beautiful_ , he’s got the far thumb knuckle jutting out, creating a sharp angle and Jon might go crazy if he's not careful – and he really doesn't need assistance to keep upright with how stiff Jon can tell that he is. He’s on his bed, over the covers, it’s spring and it’s warm and it shows, and Lin’s thighs are spread out lazily, his legs bent easy, heels tucked up under the opposing knees, that much Jon can see. The morning sun from a London of three hours prior is creating shadows on Lin’s skin and his muscles are a beautiful expanse of chiaroscuro, light-dark, what is it, _clair-obscur_. A goddamn work of art, every dip of his skin telling his brain that he might as well just blank right out. White noise. He’d get drunk on it if he didn’t despise the thought of alcohol so much right now. Jon hates how far from home he is. He knows Lin well enough to know that he must have taken care of himself as he sent that picture, sending it to Jon was just courtesy, not teasing, not playing himself. Jon groans and buries his face back in his pillow. Technically, it’s Lin’s pillow. But it hasn’t smelled of Lin in months already. Despite the hangover and the amazing visual he’s woken up to, Jon’s brain somehow manages to take note of stealing one of Lin’s pillowcases next time he goes to London.

Jon would’ve been lying if he’d said the picture doesn’t stir something in him, or that the caption leaves him unaffected. Because now, all he can think of is the feeling of his fingers wrapped around Lin’s throat, holding onto him like the most fragile lifeline, and, god help him. Lin has a point. He feels it at the pit of his stomach and the heat that pools down deep in his belly has nothing to do with the spring sun bearing down on his skin, nothing at all. It's power and Jon thrives.

His reply is equally as straightforward as Lin’s original caption. _Fuck. You’re a damn tease and that's not fair, not fucking fair. You better be on break now or in the very, very near future._

If the lack of answer is any indication, Lin’s not. It takes almost three hours before Jon gets a reply. It’s 11 AM, he's dozing off, his head hurts, his phone is on the mattress next to him, he's hyper aware of every tiny vibration coming off of it, thinks he feels quite a few of them that turn out to be nothing more than figment of his imagination and it’s awful because he wants Lin and he wants him now but he knows better than to jerk off alone. He knows better than to think Lin filed the thought away with pressing send on that picture, he has ideas. Lin always has ideas. Jon trusts them.

_Sorry, handsome. Can’t before tonight. Besides, Disney might just kill me if I get my costume… dirty._

Jon hates to say it, but it’s a pretty valid reason. Fucking Disney and their insane schedules that doesn't afford Lin enough time for a quickie on the phone between scenes. That's borderline rude, maybe downright mean, he doesn't want to wait.

 _I’m being cockblocked by a fucking mouse wearing red shorts. I can’t believe it._ He groans and figures he’s better off getting as much coffee and carbs inside his body as he possibly can. A Gatorade or two probably wouldn’t hurt either. He needs hydration, his attempts at sleeping off the pounding in his brain have not been effective in the slightest.

The hours pass by excruciatingly slowly. He changes out of the clothes he slept in, watches a few documentaries he finds on Animal Planet. For once, however, time zones work in his favour because Lin being done at 7 PM that day, England time (early for once), means it’s only 2 PM in New York. He’s glad he’s not in LA anymore. Those couple of weeks were weird. A five-hour difference? That he can work with. Eight hours? God, never again if he can help it.

 _On my way home. Will talk to you in a bit._ Jon smiles as the message lights up his screen at last and he's already thinking of what's going to happen when Lin gets to his flat. His need makes itself known in a heartbeat, maybe it had never settled, and it's almost embarrassing, but really, anyone would be guilty if they'd woken up to Lin being hard at the thought of his airways not being under his own control.

 _Can’t wait,_ he sends back right away. His headache has subsided somewhat since he woke up several hours prior.

He gathers the mugs and plates he’d used for his breakfast and drops them in the sink before he heads over to his bedroom to settle comfortably in bed, pulls his MacBook open to chat with Lin, once he gets home, on a bigger screen than what his phone can offer. He unceremoniously snakes a hand in his pants to assess the situation and leisurely strokes himself until he's a reasonable amount of hard. It’s only a few more minutes before the telltale ringtone from FaceTime is heard, and either Lin had texted him already well on his way, or he’d gotten some type of ride to get home faster than transit could afford him − which only spoke to how eager he also was for this video call. Jon’s glad to know he’s not the only one whose blood is fizzing with anticipation. He clicks the pick-up button.

“Hey, handsome.” How he’d missed Lin’s unmistakeable voice.

“Hey, lovebird,” Jon replies with a smile and for a fleeting moment he feels like a thirteen year-old girl talking to her crush. It would be more embarrassing if he didn’t feel like he had every right to feel just like that, though – they’re married and he can very well adore his husband if he so pleases.

“How was your day?”

Jon doesn’t know if Lin is asking because he’s genuinely interested, although knowing Lin he probably is, or if it’s just to make this feel less like a desperate booty call but dammit. Jon wants to see his naked husband. Right about now.

“Positively awful. I’ve had to drink Gatorade all day to even remotely feel like myself. But at least I didn’t wake up married to a stranger again, so I guess I’ve got that going for me,” he shrugs nonchalantly. Lin laughs and almost looks bashful for a full second before it passes. “Will you do something about it, make my day better?”

“I feel like that’s something I can do, yeah. If you ask nicely for it,” Lin replies.

“I thought I just did? I miss looking at you.”

Lin shrugs and sits back, arching an eyebrow instead of indulging Jon, sweet sweet Jon who’s an entire ocean too far and then some.

“So, tell me. You tried to choke someone else, now? Miss me that much that you’d play with anyone you can get your hands on?”

Lin’s teasing, Jon knows that, but it doesn’t stop him from groaning and trying to hide his face from the camera. Lin has always had a way of making him feel small, but they both know Jon absolutely loves it. Basks, revels in it. He sees Lin shuffle outside the scope of his laptop camera from the corner of his eye and hears the faint but unmistakable ruffling of fabric which can only mean he’s wasting no time in getting himself naked and ready for Jon’s sake.

"Not my fault if you wrote a line that basically implies I'm explicitly domming the shit out of whoever I'm singing it to. You can’t blame me for that. You know I’d much rather wrap my hand around _your_ beautiful throat. Feel your pulse panic and fasten underneath my fingers. Isn't that why you wrote that song in the first place, what you had in mind when you wrote it?”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?” Lin teases back.

“As are most of the shenanigans I find myself involved with, Miranda-Groff.” If Lin ever thought he’d missed the way he shivered when Jon called him by their hyphenated names, he is sorely mistaken. This is especially true when Jon’s voice drops into that deeper register he only hears in their bedroom. That voice will never fail to send a rush of electricity down his spine, and Lin doesn’t care that it’s been true for over a decade. He chooses this moment to come back and set his laptop on the bed by his hips, only showing his head and most of his torso to Jon. Not quite what he wants right now, especially not when he can see Lin’s arm moving by his side and there's absolutely no way to misinterpret what he's doing with it. Absolute tease, maybe Jon will actually have to murder him next time he gets his King George crown on and Lin is within his reach.

“It’s just way too enjoyable to fluster you, pretty boy.” Jon rolls his eyes. “Keep talking, and maybe also take off those pajamas for me? They’re cute, but not at all what I want to see right now.” he adds with a newfound breathlessness to his own voice.

“Isn’t talking _your_ job, lovebird? And actually undressing me, too. I shouldn't have to take care of this on my own.”

“Not when you’ve woken me up in the middle of the night after threatening somebody else with clear innuendos through a song I wrote for you, I don’t think so. That’s your payback, I’m not helping.”

Jon hums, sets his computer on his bed and tilts the screen just right so that he can give Lin a show as he strips. It's Lin’s turn to salivate as the light dances on Jon’s skin, highlighting his muscles and the barest hint of hair atop his breastbone, below his navel. National treasure.

“What can I say? My favourite _submissive subject_ is an ocean away. I make do with what I’ve got.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“Oh, he’s handsome. Insanely talented. A genius, if I’ve ever met one. And the best part? He’ll do anything for me, just as much as I’d do anything for him. He’s got the best heart I’ve ever encountered and just seeing him makes me happy. And let me tell you… rapping is not the only thing his mouth is good at. You’d think it was designed to suck me off.” With that, he settles back down and gives himself a quick tug to test the waters. Just off camera − he’s not giving Lin the pleasure of watching him pleasuring himself if he can’t do the same in return, so he’s got his computer on his stomach, hiding the best view.

“Funny, I thought your dick would’ve been made for his mouth, you know, considering the actual timeline in which the two were created.”

“Are you correcting me on trivia, right now? Seriously, Lin?”

“Gotta keep the fantasies accurate, pretty thing. So, you’d do anything for him, huh? Do I get to exploit that today?” Jon takes a deep breath and it comes out shakily. He's not quite sure how he lost the upper hand this early on but he's not about to rectify the situation.

“Hmm. Yes. Anything. Fuck, Lin. Lovebird.”

“How about you move your laptop so that I can see all of you, for starters? Show me that beautiful cock of yours, pretty boy.”

Lin knows full well that Jon can’t deny him anything when he formulates orders, so he complies. “Ugh, Lin.”

“That’s much better. How about you take your free hand and wrap it around your own throat for me, yeah?”

Jon casts a side glance at the camera before he lets his hand creep slowly across his abdomen. “I’m pretty sure this was supposed to be about me choking you.” He closes his fingers on his pulse anyway.

“Yeah, but I changed my mind, you’re way too hot when you follow my lead.”

Jon melts against his pillows and moans just before he applies any real pressure on his throat. He knows the drill, knows how all of his senses get heightened when he’s being choked. He feels the rush of blood in his neck, under his fingers, the strong and steady pulse trying to get through from his heart to his brain and encountering interference. He hears Lin sucking in a breath and it’s clearer than anything else he’s heard all day. He’s vaguely aware of his computer because that really does not matter to him right now, not when his eyes are closed and all he can feel is the tightness around his airways and how difficult it is to get oxygen through. He presses in just enough that he can’t breathe in, and his heartbeat accelerates, he might as well be taking off with how much he feels like he could be flying.

“You’d let me choke you as you fuck me, wouldn’t you, handsome? You want me to ride you and control just how much air you can have?” The threat in Lin’s voice is unmistakable, vaguely disguised under the pure honey flowing through his words. Jon knows it’s rhetorical, they’ve done it before, of course he’d let him, but the rush he gets from Lin’s words isn’t in any way tampered by that fact. If anything, it gives him an especially clear visual of the scene, and that is just so, _so_ good. “Just like that Sunday morning, remember? We ended up late for brunch with everyone. Your blush was so pretty when Daveed made that lewd comment about us.”

Jon lets go of the pressure on his throat to gasp in just enough air to moan Lin’s name. He’s trembling, he’s already so far gone, in such little time he’d consider being embarrassed if he had logical access to his brain. Lin has always had this effect on him, for as far as he can remember. “Fuck, Lin, please. Want you here. Want you inside me.”

It’s far from their first run at phone or camera sex. With them both being actors, it’s probably happened as much as them getting together in person. Lin’s had plenty of opportunities to learn that when Jon’s words narrow down to begging for him to be there, he’s giving off clues that he’s close to hitting his release.

“You know what you have to do, pretty thing. My pretty boy. You look so hot, spread out like this, choking and stroking yourself for me.” Jon can hear the slight unsteadiness of Lin’s voice and the sound of his hand working fast against his skin on the other end of the call.

“Lin, please. I… fuck. Please.” His vocabulary is reduced to those four words and he really doesn’t have it in himself to care.

“That’s it, honey, you know how much of a sucker I am for your begging. Take your hand off your throat, love. Open yourself up for me. Let me enjoy the show. Tell me what you want, handsome. What do you want?”

“Fuck, Lin. Want you. Want my husband to be home. Come home.” His movements are getting more frantic by the second as he contorts to reach behind himself, running his fingers against his entrance.

“You’ve got me, you know that. You’ve always got me. Come on, I’ll make you feel good.”

“I want to come, Lin, please?” His voice hitches as he dips two fingers to the first knuckle, just barely, but the feeling of the breach is almost too much and nearly sends him over right away.

“Go ahead, come for me, Jon. Let go for me, pretty boy.”

Jon comes all over himself after a couple more drags of his hand, pushing back eagerly against himself, moaning Lin’s name loudly, a mantra getting gradually higher in pitch. He's flying, it's an out of body experience but he's also never felt so at one with his physicality. He can feel every goosebump, every bead of sweat running down his skin, every warm drop of come with which he’s painting his stomach. He's ready to bet that the air is actually electrified, if the way his skin feels energized is any indication.

“Don’t you just look good enough to eat,” Lin muses, making Jon whimper quietly as the waves of his orgasm hit him and he bucks, a full-body twitch, a few more times before he collapses back on his mattress. The tension that had been nagging him since Marti mentioned getting choked by him has finally left his body. He takes a few well-deserved minutes to come back down from the high of coming under Lin’s permission before he reopens his eyes to look at the screen. He realizes that he’d never gotten Lin to give him the full show − to judge by the angle at which he could see Lin’s face and his chest, he had moved his laptop to rest on his stomach and hadn’t moved it since, holding himself in hand behind the screen still.

Jon takes a deep breath, letting out slowly as he's coming back to the world of the living. He takes a while to get his mind back to how it's supposed to be, but Lin is always patient with him, always caring. Always perfect. Once he can open his eyes for more than a few seconds at once without feeling compelled to shut them right back up, he sits back some, pushing himself up, and looks longingly at his screen, at his Lin.

“Hey. Lin, lovebird. Let me take care of you now, will you? Move that computer so that I can see you too, that’s only fair.” He can’t help complimenting him when he complies. “Thanks, love. You’re so beautiful, it's hard to believe, sometimes. Did you know that? But hey, it's your turn, now. I want to make you feel good too. You were so good to me, weren’t you?”

Jon knows, with the way that Lin whimpers at his words, that he hit some string he can exploit today. They might have done long-distance sex a ridiculous amount of time, this whole flattery thing is something they’d come across long after they thought they’d had each other well figured out, and somewhat accidentally. It had almost seemed hard to believe at first, considering how long they’d been with each other then, to find something new that worked so well for them, but Jon wasn’t about to question something that got Lin going the way praise did, however unexpected it had been. Lin definitely needed to be in a specific mood to even react to being praised, so Jon decidedly couldn’t say he went there often, but he thoroughly enjoyed having such a poignant effect on Lin whenever he was responsive to it.

“Did you enjoy ordering me around earlier? You had me all strung out for you to pull at whatever strings you enjoyed. You know I like that, you’re always so good to me, making me feel loved, you’re such a good boy. You think we can do that again soon? I know you like getting reactions out of me, isn’t that right, Lin?” Lin closes his eyes and tilts his head back, baring his throat for teeth that aren't closing over his taut skin.

"I do. Please. You and me, forever?" Lin’s whispering at this point, and Jon can see the glint of precome at the head of his cock through the motions of his hand and the space between his fingers, notices how his movements are getting more and more desperate, erratic, helpless. His shoulders are twitching and he’s squirming, his muscles contracting to the rhythm of his hand, his eyes are closed and his mouth just barely open enough to let him breathe through his lips.

Jon smiles softly. It still astounds him how Lin could somehow doubt how much he loved him after all these years. It often shows up in the most surprising of ways or at the most unexpected of times – as if, right now, Jon had anything else but love and adoration manning his neurons. Why Lin suddenly worried about the longevity of their relationship, their partnership, after getting Jon all pliant for him, after opening up to Jon so truthfully, that's a complete mystery for Jon’s logic. Some days, it almost feels like Lin is just expecting Jon to pack up and leave. As if that is something he could do, as if Jon could find anyone better than Lin. As if this world could hold someone better suited for Jonathan than Lin-Manuel − there’s a reason their last names fit so well together and he’s not about to let that go. As fucking if.

“Come on, my love. You deserve this. I want you to come good and hard for me. Be a good boy and show me what you’ve got, Mr. Miranda-Groff. Do that for me, I know you can be good for me. Give me a good show, my lovebird.”

It doesn’t take many more flicks and twists of his wrist before his body seizes and he shoots part in his hand, part across his soft stomach a few times. Lin’s not always the loud type, he’s more often than not fairly quiet, all caught breaths and stifled moans low in his throat, so it feels special to Jon when he doesn't stop himself and lets out a long moan instead once his lungs are cooperating again. He breathes in and out a few times before smiling wide and giggling to the camera, never opening his eyes. Not yet, at least. Jon finds himself wishing he knew what scene, if any, Lin was playing behind his eyelids to give himself the last push he needed to tip over.

“How was that to make up for that video call from the bar last night?”

Lin can’t help but laugh at that, shying away from his computer and hiding his face in his forearms. Jon’s eyes trail on Lin’s lean muscles, in his upper arms, his pectorals, hitches over the way he twitches lightly a few more times. He would never understand how Lin lacked confidence in any situation, especially not after sex − he was so ridiculously flawless to him, but no amount of reminders and love notes and love bites seemed to shake the worry from the back of Lin’s mind, and he generally ended up hiding from his vulnerability after emotional orgasms like the one he’d just had.

“Hey, hey, Lin, look at me. I love you. Thanks for letting me do this for you,” Jon says softly.

Lin slowly looks back down to the computer by his hips, still panting quietly, his face all flushed and his hair mussed, his hands clutching the blankets underneath him.

“I can’t wait to see you next. I miss you so much, all the way in fucking England when you’re in our home in New York. Why did anyone let me agree to this? London, really?” He huffs.

“As if you could have said no to another gig for Disney. I know this is tough now, but hey, you’re in _Mary Poppins_ , love. Don’t make me quote your own songs at you − there’s no way you would have ever refused this. We’ll find a way to see each other soon, I promise. I can come and see you, I don’t have anything coming up for the next few weeks at least. It’ll be just you, me and Tobi. I don’t care if it means I’ll wander the streets of London alone while you’re on set. As long as it means you’re coming home to me after work, I’ll gladly take on the role of your very own housewife.”

The overwhelmingly loving look that Lin shoots him after he says that? That look alone is worth invaluably more than every Tony, Grammy, Emmy and Academy Award nomination − and win − they have combined.

Three days later, Jon texts an entirely different picture to Lin. This one shows his plane ticket early into the following week, leaving JFK International Airport with Heathrow, London as its final destination. Emily laughs at the way Lin practically skips into makeup that morning.


	2. The One with the 'Hate You's and the Tattoos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a plane ticket for London with Jon's name waiting right next to their front door, a half-packed suitcase in their bedroom and a confession to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by one of Lin's latest tweets. You'll know exactly which one as you finish reading this. Also, I wrote this one on my own, but you should totally blame Gotalong for me posting it. I was considering working it in in the actual fic but seeing as it's more than 10 years in the future..... Yeah, peer pressure gets me easily, you guys.
> 
> Oh! And, this goes almost directly after _The One at Therapy_.
> 
> As always, don't share this with people who shouldn't see it, yadda yadda yadda.

It's the following Sunday after Jon's appearance at Stage Fright, a couple of days after he's texted a picture of his plane ticket for Heathrow. It's early in the afternoon in New York, which only means early in the evening in London. Nothing too crazy for once. Jon's laptop is open on the kitchen table and they're FaceTiming again, but Jon is running all over the apartment, doing the last bits of cleaning before he's set to board his flight the next day. It's funny because, more often than not, Jon isn't even in the frame for Lin to see and when he is, most of the time he's so far away that Lin can see all of him and Jon basically has to shout for Lin to be able to hear him. While he would normally somewhat mind, Lin finds he can't be bothered by it today for the very good reason that he gets to sleep in his pretty boy's arms the very next night and, at this point, Lin would tolerate pretty much anything.

Jon's happily rambling on about how he gave the spare key to Pippa so she could come in and water their plants, pick up their mail and just generally make sure they haven't been robbed or there's no general catastrophe happening. He adds that he had thought about asking Anthony and Jasmine, but he doesn't trust Anthony to be left alone unsupervised in their apartment, so asking Pippa made perfect sense. Lin agrees. He's not sure he wants Anthony snooping around and pulling random pranks on them that they'll still be falling victims to weeks after they came home. (He wants to do a victory dance over the fact that he gets to come  _home_ so very soon.)

Jon's back in the kitchen now, throwing away the last few leftovers he knows he won't have time to eat when it suddenly occurs to him that Lin has been uncharacteristically quiet for the past few minutes. He looks at his laptop, makes sure the call is still going and instantly notices how nervous Lin seems to be.

"Hey... Everything alright?" Jon asks, concern evident in his voice.

Lin looks up from his fidgeting fingers, looking every bit like a deer caught in headlights.

"Can you... Could you pause for a minute? Come sit here, I wanna see your face."

Without a word, Jon swings the fridge door closed and moves to sit in front of his laptop. "What's up?"

Lin looks back down and starts toying with what Jon realizes must be his wedding ring. Jon frowns in confusion, head tilting to the side.

"I hm... I did something stupid," Lin admits and there's something akin to dread that settles in Jon's stomach.

"What do you mean? Lin, lovebird? What did you do?" Jon asks quietly. If Jon's brain starts playing the ominous cello opening of  _Say No To This_ , he refuses to give it any thought. Lin would  _never_.

Lin takes a deep breath before he starts pulling off his wedding ring and lets it sit between his first two knuckles rather than at the base of his finger. He stares at something for a short moment and Jon's dread makes itself more insistent.

"Lin?" Jon prompts, squeaks really, and it seems to snap Lin out of his reverie and he finally holds his finger up for Jon to see.

Jon sucks in a breath as he sees it, right there on Lin's golden skin, a black _J_.

"I always said that my mic wanted a sibling..." Lin says quietly as Jon asks "Is that...?"

Jon stares at the tattoo for a while longer before he blinks slowly. He finally starts breathing again just as Lin starts explaining, talking a hundred miles a minute.

"I was in a good mood yesterday morning. And I don't know... I wanted you to have a permanent parking spot?" And there's something in Lin's voice, in the way he pitched the end of his sentence like a question, that tells Jon everything he needs to know: Lin doesn't think he'll like it. That's why he thinks he did something stupid. Because he's gotten it done before he told Jon, kept it as a surprise and now he's second-guessing himself.

"You imbecile," Jon says, shaking his head.

"What?" Lin croaks, practically blanches at Jon's comment.

"You thought I wouldn't love it! You thought I'd be mad!"

"You're not?" Lin asks and the hope Jon hears almost drives him crazy.

"Of course not! Jesus Christ, Lin!"

Jon can't look away from the black _J_ , it might just be one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen in his life. And he likes to think he's seen a lot of beautiful things over the years.

"Congrats," Jon adds. "The wait until tomorrow was already unbearable as it was, but you just made it worse. Can't wait to see it." Jon grins. "Can't wait to kiss it."

Lin takes a deep breath, it comes out shakily. It's not like Jon's not aware of how Lin reacts whenever he starts kissing or sucking on Lin's fingers.

"You'll be here tomorrow," Lin says quietly, almost to himself, as if he couldn't quite believe it was finally happening. "I wrap up on Thursday. Then I get to take you to the new spots I found since last time you came and we'll pack my shit up and then I'm coming home with you."

Jon loves the sound of that, loves the idea of Lin and Tobi finally being back _home_ , finally being with _him_ and he almost wishes he could move time forward if only so that tomorrow was already here. It takes him a while to go back to his cleaning and really, who could blame him? He can't focus on anything, even after the call ends, Jon can't take his mind off of that damn _J_. Maybe he should respond by getting a _LM_  somewhere on his skin. Maybe that's the only response that makes sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh! And title is from _Shout Out to my Ex_ by Little Mix. Which, let's be real. The whole song has nothing to do with them, but I felt like that line fit.


	3. The One Where King George Surrenders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _You’re on your own…_ ” King George finished as the melted wax dripped down. He paused before he looked up into the camera. “Good luck with the lotto,” he wished darkly before he went back to his letter, sealing it shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, that's just a little something we're actually surprised the Hamilton crew didn't do for a Ham4Ham. It would have been amazing to see that. Please enjoy! :)

“You… You want to do what?” Jon asked Lin to repeat himself one afternoon, while they were in their dressing room of the Rodgers, XBOX controller in hands.

“You heard me alright. I want to do a Ham4Ham show focused on you. Well, on King George really,” Lin replied, correcting himself.

“Why?”

“Because you only get ten minutes of the spotlight every show. Because I think you’re insanely talented and deserve so much more than just those ten minutes. Because I know you’ll kill whatever scene I write for you. Because I want to explore King George’s side of history a little bit more. And because the fans love you and want more of you,” Lin said confidently, ticking his fingers off as he listed his reasons. 

A light blush crept up Jon’s cheeks. While he couldn’t exactly say he’d gotten used to receiving compliments from the press − did anyone ever really get used to that? − he’d simply gotten better at hiding his reactions from them. But compliments coming from Lin? It didn’t matter that they were closing in on nine years together, he’d never get used to it. He was going to be in his eighties and he was probably still going to be blushing at Lin’s praises.

“Write something and have my agent take a look at it. I’ll do it if he thinks it’s a good idea,” Jon joked, making Lin laugh as he unpaused their game.

“Will do. I think there’s something on your two. Go, I’ll cover you.” 

And just like that, the Ham4Ham video was dropped and they focused back on their video game.

* * *

Jon did forget about the scene Lin wanted to write. Well. Forget might be a bit of a harsh word. It was still at the back of his mind, but he had a bunch of other stuff on his mind that needed his attention more than that. Besides, he was an actor, not a writer. Give him lines to learn and deliver and he would do it, no sweat. But coming up with them? That was a whole other story, pardon the pun.

He wanted to say that seeing Lin type away on his laptop at a dizzying speed at home should have ring some sort of bell in Jon’s mind, but in reality, Lin _was_  constantly writing, he hadn’t pulled _Non-Stop_  completely out of nowhere. And after living with Lin for so many years, it almost felt weirder for Jon to see Lin doing anything other than writing. Almost.

Therefore, it was kind of a surprise one morning when a small script, just a few pages long, was waiting for Jon on the kitchen table with a sticky note saying “For the Ham4Ham skit. Love you.”

Jon decided to resist the temptation and got started on his daily routine, brewing a good pot of coffee first. He fixed both of their mugs as it brewed, setting Lin’s aside. He used to frown at the sheer amount of sugar Lin put in it, but he knew better than to try to do it anything about it. His only attempt hadn’t been that successful. It had only taken one tiny sip of his coffee for Lin to grimace and add sugar to it, shaking his head in disapproval. Jon had gotten in the habit of joking that it really was coffee-flavoured sugar, not sweetened coffee.

 It was only a few minutes later that Jon sat down at the kitchen table, steaming mug next to the script, and started reading whatever Lin’s brilliant mind had come up with. He was vaguely aware of Lin walking out of their room and making a bee-line for the coffee pot − one could always count on that to wake him up − before he settled next to the counter, sipping quietly and watching Jon read.

“Your agent already said yes,” Lin teased after Jon was finished. It was a bit delayed, but Jon was ready to chalk it up to both the sip of coffee he had been busy drinking and the fact that he wasn’t fully awake yet. “Or at least, in my mind he did.” Jon laughed at the clumsy wink Lin threw at him. “I was thinking we could ask Neil to play the sentinel. He already has a red coat fitted to him and all that, it’ll be easy.”

Jon hummed in response as Lin sat down, adding that he was already in talks with a certain location to film there and that he’d let Jon know when they were going to shoot as soon as he’d know.

* * *

Somehow, Lin had managed to get one of the older and fancier-looking office sets at NBC for them to shoot their Ham4Ham skit. Jon had no idea how he accomplished that, but he seriously wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Although, knowing Lin, he’d probably just wink at Jon and reply with a simple “Slytherin,” as if that answered every question in the book. Apparently, _the end justifies the means_  was taken very seriously within the dungeons’ walls. 

As it turned out, filming that short skit required quite the crew. Wardrobe refused to let them leave the premises of the Rodgers without at least one of their own joining in to keep a close eye on the costumes, they would probably have sent in the entire department if Jon had to wear his entire royal outfit and they had needed more than Neil in his redcoat outfit. Lin suspected that Angela hadn’t thrown a fit simply because the cape, the crown and the scepter could stay behind. Hair and makeup had a similar reaction, but Jon was actually grateful to have their help for his wig. And Lin’s overdramatic reaction that he apparently wasn’t always camera ready had been hilarious. Then, of course, they had needed their camera and sound guys, the two actors and Lin had tagged along to help bring his vision to life. Jon was actually surprised Lin hadn’t somehow convinced Tommy to come to act as their actual director.

* * *

Jon sat down at the desk, picked up the quill and started writing as Lin stood in front of him, his back to him, to introduce the skit. Jon… No. _King George_  rolled his eyes at Lin’s exuberant “Hello, hello, hello!” and he tuned the man out, focusing on his letter instead.

“For the time being, I shall leave you in the ever-pleasant company of his Royal Highness, King George the Third.” 

The King’s jaw clenched at the sarcastic delivery of _ever-pleasant_  but that was as far as he let himself react to Lin’s words, barely sparing the man a glance as he bowed down and walked out of the frame, still bent at the waist.

A knock came at the door and King George took the time to finish writing his sentence before he even deigned answering. He dotted his sentence, smiling at the scratch his quill made on the paper. 

“Come in,” he called petulantly as he went back to his letter.

He heard the door being opened along with somebody’s footsteps coming in, but he didn’t pay it any attention. That was one of the greatest things about being King: No one dared calling you out for being rude. He heard the ruffling of clothes multiple times, betraying his visitor’s nervousness.

“What is it?” King George asked just as he started signing his letter.

“We’ve received news from several of our Lords across the colonies, your Majesty.”

“Did we? Good news, I hope,” he said. The heavy silence made him finally look up. “Good news, I hope,” he repeated, stressing the words.

He watched as the man standing on the other side of his desk swallowed hard.

“Not exactly, your Majesty,” he admitted quietly and King George raised an eyebrow in question. “Lord… Lord Cornwallis surrendered in Yorktown, your Majesty.”

King George gritted his teeth and put down his quill, fleetingly worrying that he was going to break it. In the background, Jon could just barely make out Lin’s, Daveed’s and Oak’s voices.

_“After a week of fighting, a young man in a red coat stands on a parapet, We lower our guns as he frantically waves a white handkerchief, And just like that, it’s over. We tend to our wounded, we count our dead.”_

“Pardon me?”

The poor man swallowed hard again, wringing his hands as subtly as he could. No one wanted to bring bad news to their sovereign.

“Lord Cornwallis has surrendered Yorktown to General Washington and his troops, your Majesty,” the messenger repeated. “His letter mentioned that the Marquis de Lafayette had returned to the battlefield accompanied by French forces. The Comte de Rochambeau was there as well when Lord Cornwallis surrendered, your Majesty.”

_“We negotiate the terms of surrender, I see George Washington smile, We escort their men out of Yorktown, They stagger home single file, Tens of thousands of people flood the streets, There are screams and church bells ringing, And as our fallen foes retreat, I hear the drinking song they're singing…”_

“What?” King George seethed. “The French are helping the colonies? Who does King Louis think he is? They were not his to subdue! They are subjects of the Kingdom of Great Britain! Louis doesn’t even have a kingdom anymore! The French are mine! He is still a King only by my good graces! Do they think he will ever be able to treat them better than I ever did?” King George yelled, as he stood up, palms slamming against his desk. 

He breathed hard, glaring at the man in front of him, his fingers pressing into the unrelenting surface of his wooden desk. He wasn’t an idiot, far from it even. But the way the colonies were demanding the same two things over and over again − freedom or to be included in the Parliament − was starting to drive him crazy. He tried to calm down, tried to reign in his anger, but he wanted nothing more than to destroy something, anything.

“Get out,” he finally said through gritted teeth. “OUT OF MY SIGHT!” King George yelled.

The man spun around and ran out of the office as quickly as he could, the door slamming shut behind him. King George straightened up and his blue eyes were cold as ice as he swept his gaze over the room. His fists clenched by his side when he spotted that maps of the American colonies and he bellowed in anger, stalking away from his desk and toward the window. He’d throw everything on the floor if he stayed anywhere near his desk and with the candles burning atop of it, it was ill-advised. Instead, he hit the window frame with the side of his fist, bellowing again. It was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to ride his horse to King Louis’ palace and behead him personally.

“ _They say, The price of my war’s not a price that they’re willing to pay,_ ” he started singing, his anger still seeping through every word. “ _Insane, You cheat with the French, Now I’m fighting with France and with Spain. I’m so blue, I thought that we’d made an arrangement, When you went away, You were mine to subdue. But even despite our estrangement, I’ve got a small query for you:_ ”

King George’s thoughts started going a hundred miles an hour. He’d draft an abdiction notice. He’d wash his hands completely off of them. They wanted to be independent? Fine. He would give them their independence.

“ _What comes next? You’ve been freed, Do you know how hard it is to lead? You’re on your own, Awesome. Wow. Do you have a clue what happens now?_ ”

He could only wish that whoever they were going to choose to lead them had any idea of what they were doing. All logic pointed to General Washington, but they were stupid enough to refuse the Kingdom of Great Britain’s protection, who was he to assume they were going to do the intelligent and logical thing?

“ _Oceans rise. Empires fall, It’s much harder when it’s all your call. All alone, across the sea, When your people say they hate you, Don’t come crawling back to me._ ”

He’d make sure it was very clear between him and the Americans that Great Britain didn’t want to have anything to do with any of them anymore. If their experiment turned out to be as complete a disaster as King George expected it to be, they could crawl back to their precious King Louis and beg _him_  for help. King George was going to refuse them any aid in any form whatsoever. He wouldn’t even give them the time of day if they asked.

Feeling much calmer than before, he walked back to his desk and folded his letter, taking the stick of red wax along with his seal.

“ _Da da da dat da dat da da da da ya da, Da da dat dat da ya da,_ ” he sang quietly, sounding almost happy. He supposed that, in a way, he was, indeed, happy. He was getting rid of those pesky Americans, he was going to get to deny them help in the next five years, he estimated, and then, they’d be King Louis’ problem. Wasn’t so much of a bad deal. Apart from the land he was losing. He’d simply have to work harder to make Great Britain better than it already was. 

“ _You’re on your own…_ ” King George finished as the melted wax dripped down. He paused before he looked up into the camera. “Good luck with the lotto,” he wished darkly before he went back to his letter, sealing it shut.

* * *

“Cut!” The call came after a minute and Jon sagged into his chair, his eyes shut and sighing in relief. 

The anger he’d channeled to play this version of King George was still bubbling underneath the surface and Jon wondered if he’d ever be able to deliver that song again without that edge to his voice. 

He heard a low whistle and he finally opened his eyes, watching as Lin approached.

“I don’t know if I should give you a standing ovation, bow down to you, both, or create something entirely new just for that performance.”

“How about you stick to that pampering thing you promised me, and dinner tonight? I think I want Italian and I know I definitely want that massage,” Jon replied as he pulled Lin down to sit on his lap, deliberately ignoring Jennifer’s glare. 

“Italian it is then,” Lin said quietly, just before he leaned down to kiss Jon.


	4. The One with a Grave Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
> 
> Jon released Lin’s lip from his bite and, without breaking eye contact, took hold of Lin’s arms to relocate his hands to his shoulders. With his palms atop Lin’s knuckles, he applied pressure until Lin got the message loud and clear and pushed him down. 
> 
> __

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This? This is a quick reward for your patience as Chapter 4 is coming along. We're several thousands words in, but there are several thousands words more to write, so you can have this instead. (Plus, Lin's Tonys outfit, come on.)

_#TonyAwards w/ my @HamiltonMusical kings, Josh & @briandarcyjames - @Vegalteno 06/11 6:19PM_

Lin stared at the tweet on display on his phone, knuckles to his mouth, his index outstretched and almost poking him in the eye, the disbelief he was feeling clearly painted on his features.

They had just gotten home from the Tony Awards after party, which they had spent dizzyingly jumping from one attendee to the next, hugging, laughing, smiling and congratulating, when Lin finally decided to take a look at his Twitter feed. Sure, he’d tweeted about Lac’s win, it would have felt wrong not to give a shout out to his best friend after all, but he hadn’t exactly read everything that had been posted. He hadn’t even tweeted as much as he could have. Tomorrow was still there.

That was how he found himself at almost two in the morning in their apartment, after they had stuffed their faces in _Dear Evan Hansen_ themed donuts at the after-party, and Jon changing out of his suit in their room, Lin staring at his phone with a disbelieving frown.

“Lin?” Jon asked for what sounded like at the very least the third time as he walked out of their room in nothing but his boxers, holding a clean pair in his hand. “What’s going on?” Jon added, making his way over to sit next to his husband instead of going to take a shower as originally planned.

Lin threw him a side glance before he angled his phone, allowing Jon to read the incriminating tweet. Jon’s brows furrowed in confusion. He took in the picture of himself on stage with Brian, kind of blurry and pixelated, but he could recognize his own face when presented with it. Then, he read the tweet and his frown deepened.

“‘Josh’?” Jon quoted, looking up to Lin and tilted his head to the side.

“Look who tweeted that,” Lin indicated, shaking his head.

Jon looked back at the phone and the name jumped at him. _Luis A. Miranda, Jr._. He burst out laughing in disbelief – he couldn't even find it in himself to be offended, this was something so typical of Luis to do and not realize it until someone pointed it out to him.

“No! No way!” Jon exclaimed through his laughter. “My own father-in-law?”

At that moment, Lin was the embodiment of secondhand embarrassment and it didn’t help Jon contain his laughter. If anything, it made him laugh even harder, clutching his sides as tears welled up in his eyes. He saw Lin tap away at his phone and bring the receiver to his ear, bolting up from the couch to pace around the room.

“Josh!” Lin exclaimed as soon as the call was picked up.

_“What?”_ Luis replied, sleepily. Lin didn’t even feel like apologizing for waking him up.

“You named your very own _son-in-law_ Josh in your tweet, dad!”

_“What are you talking about?”_

Lin sighed in exasperation which only made Jon double over again, gasping for air through his laughter.

“That tweet you sent out! About Brian and Jon hosting! You called Jon ‘Josh’!”

_“Did I?”_

“Yes! I can’t believe you right now! We’ve been married for ten years for crying out loud! Did it take you this long to get mom’s name right?”

Lin was trying to be mad at his dad for this… monumental mistake, but the more he had to explain it, the harder Jon was laughing and that was the thing with Jon’s laughter: It was contagious. At least, it was for Lin. If Jon was laughing, chances were that Lin was going to be joining in soon. This time was no exception. He was vaguely aware of his dad apologizing in his ear, but most of his focus was on Jon’s laugh and before long he was chuckling too.

“Alright, alright. Go back to sleep, dad. We’ll fix this tomorrow. Sorry for waking y’all up,” Lin said, his shoulders shaking lightly with the effort of keeping his laughter in. “Good night,” he added before he ended the call.

Lin sent out a tweet, made sure his phone was on silent mode before he carelessly threw it to the couch. Jon managed to unfold himself from his seat, his laughter considerably subdued. He stood and approached Lin, putting his hands on his hips and pulling him closer. He still huffed a burst of laughter every now and then, but he tried not to dwell too much on Luis’ mistake. He’d just end up on the floor laughing again if he did. Lin wrapped his arms around Jon’s neck and reached up to peck him on the lips.

“You were great today,” Lin said, smiling.

“So were you,” Jon replied, a soft smile on his lips.

“I just had a tiny award to present. You and Brian had a bunch of them, much more impressive,” Lin replied, depreciating himself again. “I particularly enjoyed that bartender joke, by the way. Did something happen while I was in London that you didn’t tell me about?” Lin teased.

Jon shook his head, rolling his eyes in mock annoyance, and moved a hand to Lin’s jaw, tilting his head up so he could kiss him softly. Lin knew how much Jon hated when he shot himself down, but some habits did indeed die hard.

“Everyone wanted to see you,” Jon argued after they broke apart. “And Best Musical isn't a _tiny award_ , Lin, it's the one everyone watches the Tonys for.”

“Well, _I_ only wanted to see _you_ ,” Lin countered, making Jon smile.

“I know, lovebird. We sat next to each other for almost the entire show once the broadcast started. Besides, you've got me here, right now, don't you?”

Lin looked up and down appreciatively at Jon's body, a lazy grin forming on his lips. He was suddenly reminded that, apart from the bowtie he had untied, he was still entirely dressed while Jon stood in front of him in nothing but his boxers. He should probably remedy that situation. Not that he had something against being dressed up while Jon was (practically) naked, quite the opposite, but this _was_ a nice damn suit… and he did care about keeping it clean.

“Yes. That I do, pretty boy. That I do,” he said, licking his lips as he stared at Jon's pectorals.

Jon leaned forward to whisper directly into Lin's ear.

“How about we go take a shower, uh? Give me a chance to look at you to my heart's desires, too.”

“I’m all yours, pretty Tony presenter,” Lin answered with a beaming smile.

Lin kept his arms looped loosely around Jon’s neck as his husband started busying his hands with Lin’s buttons and pulling his shirt out of his pants. Part of him didn't really want to get Lin out of his Tonys outfit – it was, in all honesty, probably the best suit he'd ever worn, and Lin had even said he wanted its colour to compliment Jon’s eyes – but the other part of him needed him out of his clothes so that Jon could be in contact with as much of his skin as possible.

Lin doubted he'd ever get tired of Jon undressing him. The intent with which Jon did it, and the amazed faces he made every time – that would never get old to Lin. It had been a decade, and Jon still looked like he was taking in Lin for the first time. He only took his arms off of their place of choice around Jon’s neck once his pants had been discarded and all the buttons unbuttoned. And Jon’s reaction once Lin was wearing nothing but his opened blazer and white shirt, resting against his black briefs, contrasting against his tan skin? That was probably worth never taking his own clothes off again and letting Jon do the work everyday. And maybe he should dress up more often, if only to get Jon melting against him this easily whenever he wanted him to.

Jon took hold of Lin’s blazer’s lapels, pulling him along as he walked backwards to the bathroom. The mischievous glint in his eyes managed to send a chill down Lin’s spine while simultaneously making him feel like fire was coursing through his veins. He was somewhat thankful for the high-flying emotions of the entire evening for ensuring that his blush was semi-permanent at this point, helping him not being given away excessively quickly to Jon.

He followed Jon swiftly, gaze transfixed on Jon’s eyes, his grin, his stubble, his body. He never quite realized how much Jon had filled out over the years, except for in moments of intense clarity such as these. He somehow kept forgetting, maybe it was habit – but every time he was hit with the epiphany, he fell a little bit more in love with him. That night was one of those nights, and the giddiness carried over from the awards show only made it that much more overwhelming.

Lin let out an inarticulate sound, somewhat close to an annoyed groan. He wanted to lure Jon down closer to him, wanted to bring him into a kiss but with the way Jon was leading him around and the fact that he had already undressed, Lin had no way of pulling him down without blatantly tugging at his neck, and that was roughly a million times less romantic than the mood he found himself in. So unfair.

“You took your blazer off too early,” Lin grunted, pouting at Jon. He tried his best puppy eyes on him, even though he knew very well that he would not let Jon put his clothes back on, not now, and that he had become virtually immune to Lin’s puppy dog expressions.

“Have I, now?” Jon teased right back. “Oh, I’m sorry, should I go get it? I was under the impression that we'd both shed the blazers pretty quick, but if I was mistaken, by all means…” he trailed off, never once stopping in his tracks to the bathroom.

“Will you shut up and just kiss me?”

Jon pretended to think about it for a quick second, effectively getting a rouse out of Lin who had the self-control of a five-year-old. Lin grunted and tugged at Jon’s arms, completely unashamed at how much he still was affected by Jon’s antics after this long. Jon smirked as he finally reached the bathroom, at the last second tugging Lin to the side so that he could crowd him against the sink to his left. Lin had always had a thing for Jon’s physical strength, and Jon had yet to tire of using that to his advantage.

He pressed in against Lin, forcing him to bend backwards until he had no choice but to hold onto Jon’s neck for balance. Jon used the fact that his arms were free again to slip them under Lin’s shirt and roam freely on the soft skin of his back as he let his lips graze Lin’s, supporting him at the same time. He kissed him slowly for a moment, then pulled Lin back up, torso flush against his own, so that he could run his hands down to his thighs and hoist him up on the counter before him. At long last, Jon finally slipped the garments off of Lin’s shoulders, only breaking their embrace to hang the blazer behind the door so that it wouldn't get dirty and wrinkled on the bathroom floor, he wouldn’t tolerate anything happening to that blazer. He turned back only to be faced with Lin who was sporting a blush that went down to his chest and making grabbing hands in his general direction, as if it had never occurred to him that he could just hop off and get closer to Jon again on his own.

“See something you like, lovebird?” Jon asked with a coy smirk, lingering at the door.

“You know I do. Get back here,” Lin pleaded.

“Begging already? My, my,” Jon teased, shaking his head, making Lin groan. “You’re not even naked yet. What will it be once I’m on my knees in front of you?”

Lin closed his eyes, throwing his head backwards until it hit the mirror behind him with a soft _Clang!_

“You're insufferable, you know that? And a goddamn tease.”

Jon hummed.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve been saying that since our wedding night.”

“And I stand by what I said, every bit of it,” Lin retorted with a smirk, obviously trying to regain the upper hand. He failed.

It would have been easy for Jon to comply. To simply walk right back between his husband’s legs and give him what they both wanted. But Lin was right. Jon _was_ an insufferable tease and giving in wasn’t nearly as much fun as teasing Lin was.

With that idea in mind, Jon stepped farther away from Lin, getting closer to the shower. He took his time, waiting for Lin to be looking at him again. He did so when Jon opened the shower door, his eyes narrowing at how far Jon had gotten from him. In return, Jon gave him a coy shrug and turned the shower on, shedding his boxers and making a show out of it solely for Lin to enjoy while he waited for the water to reach the perfect temperature.

Lin watched with rapt attention as his husband undressed, stepped in the shower and under the stream, taking a deep breath as water started running down his body. A drenched, naked Jonathan Miranda-Groff had long ago been established as Lin’s favourite sight of all time. His jaw clenched for a split second as he felt the need and want course through his body and, as if he knew exactly what was going on, Jon chose that moment to turn to face Lin, beckoning him over. There was no way in hell Lin wouldn't follow that suggestion. Jon was looking at him like he was a fresh meal offered to someone who’d been lost in the desert for a week. He hopped off the counter and crossed over to the shower swiftly.

“Take those off for me, lovebird?” Jon said with a pointed look at his underwear while he ran his hands all over his chest under the water, _goddamn tease_ , feigning nonchalance.

Lin complied, clumsy with anticipation, before he stepped over the threshold. He immediately settled himself in Jon’s embrace, resuming his arms’ position around his neck, pushing himself up on his toes to kiss Jon languidly. Jon slowly turned them around to let Lin under the running water before he pulled away with Lin’s lip caught between his teeth. Jon was taking his sweet time. He'd always been good at this. Unhurried. Deliberate. Controlled. Absolutely not giving into Lin’s high-flying desire, which somehow only served to amplify it. Without breaking contact, Jon started rolling his hips leisurely into Lin’s until his breath caught in his lungs. Jon knew Lin well enough to know that he wasn't unaffected or uninterested, far from it – only, he was still jetlagged, absolutely exhausted, and thriving on the nervous high energy from the Tonys and the after-party even now.

Jon released Lin’s lip from his bite and, without breaking eye contact, took hold of Lin’s arms to relocate his hands to his shoulders. With his palms atop Lin’s knuckles, he applied pressure until Lin got the message loud and clear and pushed him down. Once on his knees, Jon’s own hands instinctively brushed Lin’s forearms on their way to hold tightly onto his hips. Only then did he deign redirecting his attention to the sight of Lin’s cock, now at eye level. He was slowly, gradually getting harder, but he was far from being fully aroused. Jon would take it as a personal challenge to get him to his tipping point before the hot water ran out.

With Lin shielding him from the steady stream of the shower head, Jon got closer to him and wrapped his lips around the tip of Lin’s cock. Droplets were hitting him gently, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. He knew how much Lin loved watching water drops running along his skin, and that night was no exception. He let his tongue play around the head of his cock while keeping his own head relatively still, alternating between laving and prodding with the tip, swirling in circles and licking slow stripes across the slit. He hollowed his cheeks after a moment, sucking more of Lin into his mouth without ever relenting the movements of his tongue. Lin’s hands flew to cradle his head after a particularly good stroke of his tongue and Jon felt his fingers pressing into the base of his skull. He replicated the attention and started moving his hands on Lin’s hips, running them down the sides of Lin’s legs, bringing them back up to knead at the soft cheeks of his ass, pushing up into them, digging his fingers in the flesh, pulling them apart to make him feel exposed. At that, Lin started moving his hips in tight circles, obviously restraining himself and refraining from pushing too fast into Jon’s warm, inviting, skilled mouth. Jon looked up at Lin’s face from under his eyelashes and felt a distinctive twitch against his lips when they locked eyes, Lin steadily filling out under his ministrations. He kept at it for a long time, perhaps a bit longer than strictly necessary, smug with the knowledge of being the one to make Lin unravel under his hands and between his lips. Jon smiled as much as he could around Lin’s length, making sure that the expression would reach his eyes despite him looking up so high. He heard Lin’s shuddery breath and saw him tilt his head up infinitesimally, his eyebrows forming a deep frown as his jaw dropped open slightly, at long last. Jon pulled off slowly with a loud _pop_ muffled by the water crashing all around him.

“You can move, love, I can take it. Don't hold back. Lin, you won’t break me,” Jon spoke, his voice somehow already hoarser than usual despite the fact that he’d barely taken in more than the tip.

He wrapped his mouth around Lin again, flattening his tongue this time as he hollowed his cheeks once more, moving his head up and down the length of Lin’s arousal. He encouraged him with the pressure of his hands on his cheeks and started bobbing his head to a steady rhythm to match the roll of Lin’s hips. It didn't take long for Lin’s grip on his head to tighten, securely trapping him in place. He looked back down at Jon with an intensity yet unmatched that night, the features of his face hardening with intent.

“Oh, pretty _thing_ ,” Lin moaned, then his breath hitched as if he hadn't thought about Jon as nothing more than an object yet that night until the word was spoken out loud. He started eagerly pushing, then dragging, in and out of Jon’s mouth. Jon followed his lead and focused on keeping his lungs, his throat, his mouth as relaxed and open as he could for Lin. He whimpered softly, entirely muffled by Lin’s skin, and dug his fingers deeper in the clenching muscles of his ass, anchoring himself. “Was that your plan all along? Bringing me up to this point and then just keeping yourself open and eager and pretty for me? You’re just a thing for me to fuck, today, aren’t you?”

Jon moaned as best he could, revelling in the slick sounds of skin against skin under the water. Lin didn't always take over like he just had, but this was definitely a welcomed development to how things were going. Granted that the right mood was established, there was something ridiculously hot in being used like that, like he was nothing more than an object designed to tend to Lin’s utmost pleasure, his own relegated to a second plan entirely. He let his jaw go slack and attempted to close his eyes and enjoy the sensations, the drag and the weight and the relentless push of Lin’s cock working its way past his lips, its head nudging at the back of his throat steadily, and it was all Jon could do not to choke or gag too much at the assault.

“No, no, sweet thing, I wanna look at you, open your eyes,” Lin’s debit punctuated by the movements of his hips. “You're taking it so well for me, you're so beautiful like that, fuck,” Lin groaned. Jon tightened the death grip of his hands on Lin’s cheeks, silently pleading for Lin to continue moving in earnest, using him, he couldn't voice that out loud. “I’m getting there, gorgeous, what do you want, huh? Want me to keep doing this, your lips are all pink and swollen for me, want me to fuck your pretty mouth, is that what you want?”

Jon absolutely loved getting Lin worked up enough that he dissolved into strung out sentences that he'd never utter otherwise. It was a thrill to know that he was the reason for it, he was responsible for Lin losing his mind for him, it was all him. _Lin, Lin, Lin._ He keened high in his chest, tears welling up and threatening to spill over his waterlines, not that they would be identifiable amidst the shower stream.

“Oh, pretty thing, my pretty thing, you're all mine, aren't you? You're mine, and I can use you, all I want, can't I? You like that? You like when I’m using you like this and you don't really get a say?” Rhetorical, he knows he could tap out anytime, he doesn't want to. “Fuck, oh, I’m close, I’m getting close, stay there, don't move, don't move, don't move,” every small sentence marked with Lin burying himself in Jon’s throat that he'd made his home, Jon could feel his face flushing a violent shade of red with the effort of fighting his gag reflex, hot all over that he couldn't stop the noises he was making. “Do you want me to come all over you, all over your pretty face, or will you take it and let me come on your tongue, in your mouth, huh?”

Jon tried his best to articulate, “yes, Lin, please, _Lin_ ”, not even caring that it wasn't a yes or no type of question, he wanted Lin so much. It was absolutely impossible to articulate anything really, almost obscene gargled noises coming out of him instead. Lin came to a loss for words, strings of Spanish curses tainting his tone now, and it was only a few more bucks of his hips until he doubled over, holding Jon in close and pulsing hot and thick directly down Jon’s throat, giving him no choice but to swallow or choke. He held on just a few seconds longer before finally allowing him to pull off and regain control of his breathing again.

“Fuck, Lin,” Jon breathed off once oxygen had regained its standing as a familiar feeling in his lungs. He was suddenly aware of the white hot need that had accumulated between his thighs and not entirely sure of how he wanted to take care of it exactly, hadn’t decided. “I can't say that this had been my plan all along, but… you definitely won't hear me complain right now,” he confessed, looking up at Lin with dilated pupils, his eyes almost entirely black.

“What was your plan, then?” Lin asked as he leaned against the glass wall of the shower while he attempted to regain his wits. He turned the water off to save up on it for a bit, there was no need in wasting any more water at the moment. Jon still hadn't come and he looked achingly hard, so Lin figured he might as well wait some more before he pulled out the soap and washed them both.

“Well, you see. I had some ideas about using that glass wall and my arms to hold you up while I fucked you, it's been way too long since I last got to do that...”

He trailed off, sat back on his haunches, mind still swimming in arousal, especially at the new flood of pictures that his lust-filled brain provided him. He dragged a hand up to wrap his fingers around himself, hoping he'd still be enticing enough for the hazy Lin who stood before him, knees wobbly in his afterglow, to want to indulge him, help him out. He bared his throat, flexed his muscles and reached behind his back to play with himself in a way that he hoped was alluring, letting his gaze drop to Lin’s lips. Hopefully, Lin would spare him the strain and effort of having to do all the work himself. He put on a show while he fucked into his hand slowly, rolling his hips seductively and never taking his eyes off of Lin, as if he was daring him to stand there and just _watch_.

“Ever-insufferably teasing, aren't you just a handful, pretty boy,” Lin said before he let himself slide down the glass to sit in front of Jon, still panting. “In need of assistance? Come up, come over here,” he directed, patting down his thighs for Jon to straddle.

Jon knee-walked the short distance and settled over Lin’s legs, braced a hand up on the wall by Lin’s head and stroked himself with the other, rested his forehead down on Lin’s. Lin brought both of his hands to touch Jon’s thighs, running up and down the soft skin before he dragged his nails down to his knees then soothed on his way back up. Jon’s hand sped up and he shuddered with the burn of the scratches on his sensitive skin. He opened his mouth and panted, letting out breathy moans, not bothering to hold in the rotations of his hips while he used Lin’s legs underneath him as the perfect support down on which to grind. Lin tilted his head up to capture Jon’s lips into a heated kiss, muffling Jon’s moans as he did so. He brought a hand up to play lazily with Jon’s balls, happy to just enjoy the intimacy of the moment, and Jon was so close that he probably didn't really need Lin’s help. All five fingers of his free hand caught a hold of Jon’s hip and dug in, perfect pressure in his tense muscle. He fondled and tugged alternatively at Jon with the hand that was busying itself between his legs while keeping an ear out for the slight hitches of Jon’s breathing. Lin knew from experience that Jon didn’t have the mind to keep putting on a show for Lin’s sake; he was losing himself in his own pleasure, Lin being there to catch him a mere bonus that would get him there faster, is all. Lin let go of Jon’s hip to toy with his nipple instead, rolled it between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, tugging, pinching, _rolling_.

“Lin, don't stop, please don't stop,” Jon whispered in his ear as he dropped his head to Lin’s shoulder, the movements of the hand with which he was stroking himself increasing in speed and instability.

“Come on, pretty boy. Wanna come for me? Let it go, I got you, I love you, come on,” and Jon shuddered hard at Lin’s words, finally letting himself moan _loud_ and unrestrained into the crook of Lin’s neck

Lin pinched down on the sensitive pink skin of the nipple he'd been toying with and that was all Jon needed to be pushed over his own tipping point, writhing above Lin and moving his hand from the glass to grip at the side of Lin’s neck with his thumb resting right at the edge of his jaw. Lin moved his head to the side to kiss and nibble at Jon’s straining neck through his orgasm, letting him release in white streaks painting all over his stomach and his chest until Jon collapsed down onto him.

They stayed entangled on the shower floor for indescribable amounts of time, both of them entirely too spent, too exhausted, too relaxed and too sweaty to move an inch. They were happy to simply bask in each other’s presence and contemplate just how lucky they had been to run into each other on the other side of the country. They were shivering by the time they finally decided to move again, turning the shower back on to warm themselves and clean each other up. Once dry, Jon guided Lin to their bedroom by the hand so they could finally curl up together in bed, leaving Lin’s phone abandoned on the couch. They could deal with the fan’s reactions to Lin’s and Luis’ tweets in the morning. For now, they had some much needed rest to catch up on.

_DAD! I can’t believe you! Did you just rename #Groffsauce Josh?! Your own son-in-law! We’ve been together for 10 yrs! For shame, @Vegalteno! - @Lin_Manuel 06/12 02:13AM_


	5. The One Where He Rode Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He couldn’t hear traffic humming down below, couldn’t make out blaring horns pressed by annoyed drivers, couldn’t feel the floor shake and his furniture rattle as the train passed outside. All the noises he’d taken for granted his entire life were nonexistent here. There wasn’t even the reassuring presence of another soul, someone to occasionally turn the page of a book, to quietly get a glass of water or to set it down on a coffee table._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows right where Chapter 5 left of.

Sunday morning was, on all accounts, at the very least uncomfortable and at the worst, awkwardly silent. Lin and the Groffs kept stealing glances at Jon as they ate breakfast, Jon’s shoulders visibly tensing as time went on. All four plates were still mostly full when Jon slammed his utensils onto the table, the ceramics clinking and rattling. He shot up from his seat, his chair threatening to tip over, and stalked toward the foyer. Lin made a move to follow him but Julie rested her hand over his wrist, shaking her head _no_. He opened his mouth to say something but the front door slammed and the words died in his throat as Julie sighed sadly.

She stood and motioned for Lin to follow her, going to the large window above the sink.

“You wouldn’t be able to follow him,” she said quietly, sensing his hesitation.

Lin frowned and gave in a couple of seconds later, heaving a sigh as he walked to stand next to his mother-in-law. They watched as Jon finally became visible from the window, striding purposefully toward the stables.

“Julie, please…” Lin pleaded, agitated.

“Lin, sweetheart, trust me on this.”

“But he needs me!”

“Yes, he does. But, sometimes, needing someone means needing them to give you your space and above all, that’s what Jonathan needs right now,” she explained.

"I'm sorry, but she's right, son,” Jim joined in. “Jonathan needs to be able to let that anger go, or it's gonna be directed at you and he doesn't want that. He’s dealt with his anger that way since he was old enough to ride a horse on his own. Who even knows what he does in the woods when he gets there."

“You’re not helping, sweetheart,” Julie gently admonished her husband and he shrugged in response.

Lin sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Every fiber of his being was telling him to go after Jon, to try and work this out with him. But as much as it pained him to admit it, as much as he hated Julie’s words, he knew they were right. He knew that out of the three of them, his parents were the ones who knew their son the best, that they were the most likely to be right about his needs.

It wasn’t much later that Jon burst through the backdoors of the stables, riding Starlight at a gallop. The pair rode toward the back of Jon’s parents’ field, gracefully jumping over the low fence before they disappeared behind the trees.

“That’s what you meant when you said I wouldn’t be able to follow him, isn’t it?” Lin asked as he kept staring at the last spot he had been able to see Jon. The landscape was uncharacteristically undisturbed, bore no traces of Jon’s outburst, and Lin hated how peaceful the grounds in front of them seemed. He felt as if the bright sun and glistening layer of snow were mocking the storm he felt boiling inside of him and the rage that emanated from Jon as they saw him get smaller and smaller on Starlight.

“It was,” Julie confirmed. “Come on, I’ll get you some fresh coffee and I’ll warm up your food, how does that sound?”

Lin took a second to think about it, glanced at the table where Jim seemed to have returned to his thoughts, and then back at Julie’s kind face.

“It sounds good, but I think I’ll pass, thank you for the offer, though. Is there…” Lin hesitated, searching for the right words, and Julie reached out to take his hand, squeezing it lightly to urge him on. “Is there any way I could steal a few sheets of paper from you, some alone time to write and maybe an envelope?”

“I think I can do that,” she said as she started to walk out of the kitchen, gently pulling Lin along with her. “I’ll even let you borrow a pen,” she teased, making Lin huff an embarrassed laugh.

She led him upstairs and to a desk tucked away in a small nook, just under a window that gave out on the backyard. It was a bit messy, the type of organized chaos that Lin adored and on which he thrived. Julie opened a drawer, considered him for a couple of seconds and pulled out a small stack of paper.

“Envelopes are right there,” she said pointing to a mail holder, “and well, obviously, pens are in the pot on the corner.” Lin laughed as Julie winked at him. “I’ll go run some errands with Jim so you can have some quiet time,” she decided. “Will you be alright?”

Lin nodded and pulled the petite woman into a hug, unsure of how else he could express his gratitude towards her.

“Thank you. For everything,” he said quietly and Julie could tell the thanks was for much more than the stationary she was providing him.

She took a step back to look at him properly, squeezing his arms.

“You two have something good going on. I’m only sorry David seems so intent on destroying it. As I told you last night, do _not_ let him come between you and Jonathan.”

“I’m not, I won’t,” Lin said seriously. “That’s why I asked for all of this,” he explained, vaguely waving at the desk.

Julie nodded before she let go of him.

“I don’t know how long you have, but I believe Jonathan will be out for a while. Don’t worry about him too much − this is for the best. You’ll find books tucked away in a number of places around the house and, of course, there’s the barn if you want to go see the goats again. Just be careful to close the door behind you so they stay in, will you?”

Lin promised he’d be careful and Julie smiled, leaving him after a few more parting words. Lin sat heavily in the wooden chair and waited, allowing the storm of his words and thoughts to take all the space they wanted in his brain. He heard muffled voices coming from the kitchen, was aware of the faucet there running for a while. Soon enough, however, the front door clicked shut and the house fell silent.

As he tapped the pen on the desk, trying to figure out grammatically correct sentences, Lin realized that the Groff’s farmhouse was just that: silent. He couldn’t hear traffic humming down below, couldn’t make out blaring horns pressed by annoyed drivers, couldn’t feel the floor shake and his furniture rattle as the train passed outside. All the noises he’d taken for granted his entire life were nonexistent here. Vega Alta itself was never this peaceful − the coquís were still out there singing their melody as everyone else slept. Even the quietest corners of the island never had this level of… nothing going on. The utter silence of the country hadn’t fully hit him up until then, maybe it should have at night, but he’d always been busy enough not to notice it. Now, he couldn’t escape it. There wasn’t even the reassuring presence of another soul, someone to occasionally turn the page of a book, to quietly get a glass of water or to set it down on a coffee table.

He closed his eyes, savoured the quiet for a minute, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, welcoming the clarity it brought to his mind. He put the tip of the pen to the paper and started writing.

When Jon came back from his ride, Lin was still alone inside, taking notes… out of what seemed like one of Julie’s cookbooks. With a confused frown on his cold face, Jon walked deeper into the living room and, sure enough, Lin was seated on the floor in front of the coffee table, cookbook opened to one of Julie’s most frequent recipes if the number of stains on the pages were anything to go by, brows furrowed as he copied the recipe on a sheet of paper. He had headphones on his head, settled tightly on his ears, resulting in him staying undisturbed by Jon’s presence.

“You’re not trying to poison me, are you?” Jon asked, making Lin jump in surprise.

“Jon! Jesus, you scared me,” Lin said, a hand clutched over his heart and the other pulling the headphones to his neck. Jon apologized and Lin shrugged it off. “And no, of course not. That’s why I’m copying your mom’s recipes! So I _don’t_ poison you!”

Jon squinted at him, looking entirely suspicious and not comforted in the slightest by Lin’s explanation.

“Where are they, by the way? Ma and Pa?”

“Went out to run some errands,” Lin explained dismissively. He observed Jon for a moment, tilting his head to the side as he looked him up and down. “You should go take a warm shower. You look frozen to the bone,” he suggested, trying to subtly send Jon to his bedroom where he had left his letter in plain sight.

“Are you coming with me?” Jon asked in what he hoped was an alluring manner, but knew he was falling horribly short.

Lin gave him a warm smile.

“Nah. You go, I’ll finish up here, there are a couple more I wanted to jot down.”

“Oh… Okay… If you’re sure…”

Lin gave a short laugh. “It’s better if one of us stays out, pretty boy. Unless you really want to be screaming my name as your parents walk back in, because that’s just how my luck goes,” Lin teased and Jon’s cheeks flushed a deep shade of red, darkening the rosy cheeks he’d gotten from the cold.

“I… Uh… Yeah, okay…” Jon stammered, making Lin snicker.

“Go. I’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly, shooing him off.

Jon nodded, only looking half convinced, but he let Lin to his own devices. There was a part of him that was glad for the extended reprieve. While he did feel better than he had when he’d ran out to Starlight, he wasn’t sure he felt entirely quite like himself yet. Hopefully, a steaming hot shower was going to help him wash the rest of his worries away.

As he walked into his bedroom, he was unaware of Lin abandoning his recipe and his headphones in favour of staring in the direction Jon had disappeared to, waiting for a reaction he didn’t know was going to come. For his part, Jon started collecting the things he was going to need for his shower when he happened to glance at his bed. Right at the center, leaning between both pillows, a crisp white envelope rested with his name written on it.

He dropped the clean pair of boxers and the sweatpants he was holding at the foot of the bed, walking towards the letter without taking his eyes off of its envelope, like a moth to a flame. His hand was shaking as he reached out for it and picked it up. He frowned in confusion when he realized it had a weight to it, as though it held more than just a couple sheets of paper.

He didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it was easy enough to assume it was Lin’s and his frown deepened as he let himself fall on his bed. He was scared of what could be inside the envelope, couldn’t remember if he’d seen Lin’s ring around his finger when he had talked to him, but he tried to reassure himself: whatever was in there wasn’t thick enough to be his husband’s wedding ring. He shut down, as best he could, the part of his brain that chimed with that thought and reminded him that Lin had unequivocally refused to follow him and take a shower together, which, if Jon was honest… was a first. Lin never passed up an opportunity to take care of Jon, or to warm him up, and he’d potentially never needed to be warmed up as much as he did coming in from his morning ride.

Jon unstuck the tip of the fourth flap with a flick of his finger and pulled out the folded letter. In the centerfold, he found a couple of keys and took them, holding them in the palm of his hands as he stared at them before directing his attention back to the letter.

> _My love,_
> 
> _Words cannot always express the depth of someone’s feelings, but I’d like to give it a try, if you’ll give me the chance._
> 
> _First off, I love you. I hope that, by now, that fact is obvious enough. If it isn’t, I’m sorry and that’s on me to change how I show it so that you’ll feel as loved and appreciated as I think you deserve to feel. I want nothing more than for you to feel how important you are to me, how I’ll always be willing to turn the whole world upside down if it results in your happiness._
> 
> _Second off, I don’t pretend to know what made you tense and run off to Starlight this morning. I believe I have an idea, but that’s all it is: an idea. Only you know the truth and that’s okay. If you want to talk to me, I’ll always be here to listen, but if you don’t, that’s okay, too. I can only hope there’s someone else with whom you’d feel comfortable enough to share your worries._
> 
> _Just know that there’s nothing anyone could say that could change my opinion of you, the high esteem I have for you. I refuse to let my opinion of you be influenced by anyone but you. And so far, I’ve seen nothing but a strong-willed young man, who stands up for himself and what he believes in, as hard as that might be sometimes. That’s admirable. YOU are admirable._
> 
> _One day, soon I hope, will you let me sing your praises for hours on end?  
>  There’s so much to say and, yet, only so many hours in a day to do it._
> 
> _Lastly… When we got home from Vegas, I told you you were free to come and go to my apartment as you pleased, but I never gave you the means to do it. Two days later, I was claiming your emergency key as mine without really giving you a choice on the matter, I can see that, now. The bronze one opens the door to my building, the silver, the apartment door. As always, you’re welcome to come home anytime you’d like. I’ll give you back yours, if you want me to._
> 
> _I love you, siempre,  
>  Your lovebird_

Jon closed his fist around the keys, clutching them as tears welled up in his eyes, oblivious to the teeth digging into his flesh. He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed back his emotions as best as he could before he set everything aside and stalked out of his room.

Lin scrambled to his feet as Jon purposefully strode toward him. As soon as they were close enough, Jon pulled Lin into a kiss, one hand going to Lin’s jaw as he tried to pour all of his feelings into the kiss while the other clutched a fistful of Lin’s shirt. He held him tightly against himself, chests pressed flush against the other’s, hips crushed hard against each other’s.

They both were breathing hard when they broke apart. Jon took a small step back so they wouldn’t topple over, but he still pressed his forehead against Lin’s, his thumb gently stroking Lin’s cheek.

“Keep it,” Jon whispered quietly.

“Hm?”

“The key to my apartment. It’s yours. Keep it,” Jon clarified and Lin beamed at him before he kissed him again.

When Jim and Julie came back home, Jon and Lin were both sitting on the floor around the coffee table, more cookbooks and stacks of paper surrounding them, playfully arguing, Jon’s shower long forgotten.

“Oregano,” Jon said.

“But… The recipe doesn’t call for any?”

“Trust me, I’ve done it often enough. It needs oregano. Makes it better.”

“If it did, it would be in the original recipe!”

“Write it down or don’t, lovebird, that won’t stop me from adding it in. And then you’ll cook it, won’t put it in and you’ll complain that it doesn’t taste as good as when I’m the one who does it. Which will probably result in you refusing to ever cook it again. So let’s all save ourselves the trouble and just write it down, Lin.” Jon stated, making Julie laugh. She was fairly certain she had had the same type of arguments with her husband back in their youth.

And with her son when she was teaching him.

**Author's Note:**

> we thrive on feedback, so please consider this official begging for you to drop us a line or eight if you've made it this far.


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